Tea at Trianon: The Most Pro-Life President Ever

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, May 26, 2018

The Most Pro-Life President Ever

From Fox News:

Trump has stood up for the humanity of the unborn child like no president in recent memory. And this is why so many Christian conservatives stick with him. Witness the foot-stomping standing ovation the president received Tuesday night at the annual Campaign for Life gala of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. Not only was Trump reportedly the first president to address this incredible organization in its 26-year history, he used the occasion to deliver on yet another pro-life promise, one that his Republican predecessors could not, or would not, fulfill: He announced a new rule to stop indirect taxpayer funding of abortion through the Title X family planning program.

"When I ran for office, I pledged to stand for life, and as president, that's exactly what I have done," Trump declared. "Today, we have kept another promise. My administration has proposed a new rule to prohibit Title X funding from going to any clinic that performs abortions."

Any organization receiving Title X funds will be required to establish a bright line of both physical and financial separation between its family planning activities and any program or facility that performs or refers women for abortions. Since 1976, federal law has prohibited use of federal funds for abortion. But today, Planned Parenthood clinics that receive federal family planning funds often essentially refer women for on-site abortions. Under Trump's Protect Life Rule, this will no longer be permitted.

The Protect Life Rule is a victory pro-life Americans have been awaiting for three decades. President Ronald Reagan first issued a version of the rule in 1988, but pro-abortion groups challenged it in court. The George H.W. Bush administration fought them all the way to the Supreme Court and won: In 1991, the court upheld the Reagan rule in Rust v. Sullivan. But the ruling came too late; Bill Clinton soon took office and withdrew the rule.

When George W. Bush was elected, he failed to reinstate the rule during his eight years in office. My former White House colleague Yuval Levin recently wrote that the reinstatement effort "was abandoned in the spring of 2006, in a deputies-level policy gathering that was one of the most contentious meetings I ever witnessed in government."

In the Trump administration, there were apparently no "contentious" meetings or hand-wringing over the impact on Capitol Hill. He just did it. This fearlessness when it comes to the cause of life is what warms the hearts of Christian conservatives and makes them loyal to the president. (Read more.)